Dispersion of the group velocity refractive index in GaAs double heterostructure lasers

Author

Van Der Ziel, Jan P. ; Logan, Ralph A.

Author_Institution

AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA

Volume

19

Issue

2

fYear

1983

fDate

2/1/1983 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

164

Lastpage

169

Abstract

The dispersion of the refractive index corresponding to the group velocity $n*_{1}$ has been measured as a function of wavelength. It is obtained from the longitudinal mode spacing of GaAs buried heterostructure lasers at threshold. The dependence of $n*_{1}$ on wavelength contains an approximately constant term due to the refractive index n1and a strongly dispersive component due to $-\\lambda (\\partia\\ln_{1}/ \\partia\\l\\lambda )$ . For a given spectral bandwidth, the dispersion of $n*_{1}$ causes a temporal broadening of a pulse as it passes through the medium. This dispersive effect is shown to contribute to the width of 0.65 ps long pulses obtained recently from mode locked semiconductor lasers. By reducing the length of the laser, the dispersive effect is reduced and it is suggested that pulses as short as 10^-13s should be obtainable from such mode locked semiconductor lasers.

Keywords

Gallium materials/lasers; Infrared propagation in dispersive media; Mode locked lasers; Bandwidth; Dispersion; Gallium arsenide; Laser mode locking; Laser modes; Optical pulses; Refractive index; Semiconductor lasers; Velocity measurement; Wavelength measurement;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JQE.1983.1071836

Filename

1071836